Four of the five families who asked the county’s board of education to overturn their children’s expulsions have settled with the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

The four families reached agreements with the district over the expulsion agreements they signed at the height of the cheating scandal and are no longer part of the scandal’s ongoing litigation, said Ronald Wenkart, general counsel for the Orange County Department of Education, in an email.

“One family has not settled with Newport-Mesa Unified School District and remains in the litigation,” he wrote. “We are hopeful that the remaining family will settle with the school district in the near future.”

The agenda for the May 14 county board meeting has not been posted. The public may attend and comment, including on closed session items. The meeting will start at 8 a.m.

The cheating scandal became public in December, when 11 students were accused of working with Irvine tutor Tim Lai to use keylogging devices to hack into teachers’ computers to change grades and steal tests.

In January, all 11 students were expelled from the school after they signed stipulated expulsion agreements with the district. More than half the students apparently left the district, but the others could have returned to Corona del Mar next fall.

Then in March, five of the families appealed the stipulated expulsions to the county board. Lawyers and parents for the students said the agreements were obtained fraudulently and were not legal. The county board debated whether it had jurisdiction to approve or hear an appeal of a stipulated agreement, so the board sued the families and the Newport-Mesa district to get a judge’s opinion on the legal questions.

Meanwhile, Newport Beach police investigators have submitted a case against Lai to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, and that case currently is under review.

Police also submitted information to the county’s Probation Department in connection with the students’ involvement, but a probation official said he would not release any information about juveniles involved in the case, nor could he confirm that the office received anything from the police connected to the case.

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